Quote

Obey this may be right but beware of reverence.... Government is nothing but regulated force force is its appropriate claim upon your attention. It is the business of individuals to persuade the tendency of concentrated strength, is only to give consistency and permanence to an influence more compendious than persuasion.

William Godwin

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William Godwin
Age: 80 †
Born: 1756
Born: March 3
Died: 1836
Died: April 7
Journalist
Novelist
Philosopher
Political Philosopher
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Wisbech
Cambridgeshire
Give
Atheism
Obey
Government
Strength
Tendency
Regulated
May
Influence
Reverence
Permanence
Nothing
Attention
Tendencies
Concentrated
Right
Upon
Claim
Persuade
Giving
Force
Appropriate
Persuasion
Individual
Individuals
Beware
Business
Claims
Consistency

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Literature, taken in all its bearings, forms the grand line of demarcation between the human and the animal kingdoms.
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There is no sphere in which a human being can be supposed to act where one mode of reasoning will not, in every given instance, be more reasonable than any other mode. That mode the being is bound by every principle of justice to pursue.
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Everything that is usually understood by the term co-operation is, in some degree, an evil.
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The subtleties of mathematics defecate the grossness of our apprehension, and supply the elements of a sounder and severer logic.
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It is probable that there is no one thing that it is of eminent importance for a child to learn. The true object of juvenile education, is to provide, against the age of five and twenty, a mind well regulated, active, and prepared to learn. Whatever will inspire habits of industry and observation, will sufficiently answer this purpose.
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One of the prerogatives by which man is eminently distinguished from all other living beings inhabiting this globe of earth, consists in the gift of reason.
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Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire.
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Whenever government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves, the only consequences it produces are those of torpor and imbecility.
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Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.
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If there be such a thing as truth, it must infallibly be struck out by the collision of mind with mind.
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Self-respect to be nourished in the mind of the pupil, is one of the most valuable results of a well conducted education.
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The great model of the affection of love in human beings is the sentiment which subsists between parents and children.
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The diligent scholar is he that loves himself, and desires to have reason to applaud and love himself.
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Government can have no more than two legitimate purposes - the suppression of injustice against individuals within the community, and the common defense against external invasion.
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A celebrated north country apostle, who, after Calvin had damned ninety-nine in a hundred of mankind, had contrived a scheme for damning ninety-nine in a hundred of the followers of Calvin.
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The execution of any thing considerable implies in the first place previous persevering meditation.
William Godwin
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If admiration were not generally deemed the exclusive property of the rich, and contempt the constant lackey of poverty, the love of gain would cease to be an universal problem.
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Justice is the sum of all moral duty.
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Above all we should not forget, that government is an evil, an usurpation upon the private judgment and individual conscience of mankind.
William Godwin
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Of Belief Human mathematics, so to speak, like the length of life, are subject to the doctrine of chances.
William Godwin